fuck this

honey look, freedom of expression and the right to protest in America just ~~got~~ dropped.

I swallowed my misgivings and voted Democrat, just like I've done at each election since I turned 18, but handwaving away valid criticisms is not how you get people to side with you. Pressure needs to be put on the democrats to be better, too.
- I'm 100% for valid criticisms—I don't even consider myself a Democrat and I have no compunctions about criticizing them when I think they are wrong. But I'm pretty sure that meme is directed at those who withheld their vote.
- Shielding the Democrats from the pressure to adopt more popular positions lost this election.
- Yep, I voted D like I always did...
  
  But I spent a lot of time ringing any alarm bell I could find that all of Joe and Kamal's moves to the right was gonna cost us the election, and that the victory fund would lose the House and Senate.
  
  I was right on all counts, but the people I was trying to explain it won't admit that reality proved them wrong.
  
  There's no criticism for what the party did wrong, only anger at anyone with higher standards than the letter by the name.
  
  Neoliberals want nothing as much as they want blindly loyal Dem voters, it's the only way most people ever hold their noses and vote for one. But rather than have a candidate dem voters want, they'd rather risk trump.
  
  When they shut on voters like in that meme, they're telling us they have zero problem watching the country burn. They'd rather have trump than a Dem who agrees with Dem voters.
- Not voting for them has never once, in the history of history, gotten them to change. It actually causes them to pull further right.
- No one is hand waving away anything by asking people to vote
- The argument, was the least bad between two bads. This is way worse than the alternative would ever get
- Pressure needs to be put on the democrats to be better, too.
  
  They're already 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000x better than Republicans. So someone would have to be pretty goddamn stupid not to vote for them when the options are them or Republicans.
  
  The majority of the fault isn't on Democrats. It's on goddamn stupid braindead asshole American voters for being goddamn stupid braindead assholes.
- handwaving away valid criticisms
  
  If you look carefully, you'll find statements about how "neither option affects [this particular thing] but we have the best chance of fixing it after the election if we still have a country".
  
  It was never handwaved. It was the least-worse option with some kind of hope given that issue and a thousand others. How many times this has fucking been fucking explained and not fucking understood.
Biden also surpressed student protests. This isn't the gotcha you think it is
I feel a lot of people do a lot to justify stupid behaviour. "Saving is too hard" or "exercise is too hard". There's legit reasons to not be able to save, or exercise or being able to vote 🤨.

However there's a lot of bullshit that people were spouting. It's either a coordinated campaign or just dumb shit. What annoys me is everyone piling on Joe and then they did what people wanted and swapped to Kamala and they're still upset that the Dems "don't listen". Whatever, they're all full of it.

I fucking hate the Democrats but you have to be completely psycho to justify not-voting for them.

To be clear, I'm Canadian and I'm directly impacted by this now. So fuck all of those people.
I'm not American so nobody got my vote, but seems to me like the issue is with the swathes of people choosing facism rather than progressives who chose not to vote.

Choosing how to act in a world like ours is tricky, anyone following a sense of right and wrong (even if I disagree with their judgement) instead of fear, hate, greed or whatever gets a gold star in my book.
- Inaction is still a choice, though. I totally understand the sentiment behind that choice and even agree that we shouldn't be forced to choose genocide, but the alternative that we got is a man who not only wants the same genocide, but wants to accelerate it, put American boots on the ground to assist in it, and then turn the bloodied ground into resorts while also wanting to worsen life across the globe. So, by refusing to act, they didn't oppose that man getting into power. They cared so much about genocide that, ironically, they enabled making that genocide worse by not acting against that possibility.
  
  The biggest issue, though, is with the people who couldn't be bothered enough to vote. Some, what, 40% of Americans never vote? Of course, there's plenty there who can't due to things like gerrymandering, but there's a huge swathe of white suburbanites who simply prefer the status quo to actually improving things.
Putting Genocide Joe in scare quotes. Libs are going fully mask-off in this thread.
If the Democrats wanted me to vote for their candidate they should have picked one that didn't suck balls
Your comment's downvotes = how many profoundly stupid people who STILL haven't learned from their mistake there are out there.
Why are we still talking about this? It's over, and we can't undo the results.
Nobody pushing genocide is worthy of votes or support.

It was incumbent on Dems to EARN votes, and they failed spectacularly. You’re wrong to try blaming voters for failings of our corrupt politicians.
Imagine thinking 5 people on the internet caused Trump to win.
- They only had $1,500,000,00 to spend on Biden/Harris....
  
  How is that supposed to counter the majority of Dem voters not wanting the Dem candidate?
  
  What are they supposed to do?
  
  Run a fair primary, back the winning candidate in the general, and stop bankrupting state parties?!
  
  George Clooney doesn't eat dinner for free ya know....
Ahh. This bullshit trope from the class of people basically responsible for Trump winning the 2024 election.
- Sorry, did you just blame the people who didn’t vote for Trump for being responsible for Trump being president? Interesting mental gymnastics there…

This is the same as the Zelensky trap. They're going to cut federal funding regardless. The just plan on getting you to bend the knee before hand.

This exactly. Higher education hurts them in the long run so it was never going to get a pass. It’ll be gutted so that private schools can take over. This is just a way to put the blame on the universities and students who don’t bend to their will.
- It’ll be gutted so that private schools can take over
  
  Maybe. If it resists. If it fails to resist it will be turned into an institution responsible for communicating a fascist ideology.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances

1st ammendment to the constitution since conservatives love to claim they support it

Ah! But it says "congress shall make no law," not that "the president shall tweet no bullshit!"
- tbh, the founding fathers did fuck this up quite bad, by not including this
- The constitution also didn't say "the president shall give a shit about the law"
  
  Rookie mistake, IMO
Bold of you to assume that the US is a country still under the rule.of law.
Nah I'm pretty sure the 1st amendment just says I can say the N word /s
Yeah but they're gonna rewrite the constitution, it's gonna be the best constitution the founding fathers will be jealous they didn't come up with this thing it's gonna be airtight and on the blockchain
Laws only matter if they are enforced.

The right wing doesn't care about law or consistency. They care about in-groups to protect and out groups to bind.

If "how do treat strangers" is a viable metric for assessing if someone is a good person or not, the the right wing are not good people.
Oh, we don't use that outdated piece of paper any more, haven't you heard?
That's not a problem if executive orders are treated as law; the first amendment doesn't curtail the president's power.

This happened before: https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sophie_Scholl

a German student and anti-Nazi political activist, active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich(LMU) with her brother, Hans.

"Such a splendid sunny day, and I have to go. But how many have to die on the battlefield in these days, how many young, promising lives... What does my death matter if by our acts thousands are warned and alerted. Among the student body there will certainly be a revolt."

She's bae.
I'm more of a Black Orchestra but big props to the White Rose

Does "NO MASKS" mean that choosing to wear a mask to protect your health is now forbidden at colleges or is there another meaning that I don't understand? It is so random and has nothing to do with the rest of the post except for being "woke".

Probably making wearing any mask while protesting illegal, regardless of the legality of the protest itself.
- My understanding is that he can’t just declare masks to be illegal, especially via ‘truthing’ it.
- Unless it's the proud boys with their uniforms, obviously.
- Yeah a lot of states passed "you must carry a doctor's note to wear a mask in public" laws during COVID.
  
  I've written to my Republican state lawmaker only to receive a form reply.
They don't want people concealing their identity to avoid police following them after protests.
- Yeah, only the police are allowed to conceal their identity
Wouldn't surprise me if they were STILL removed about having been forced to wear masks 5 years ago lmaooo
Masks are for hiding your identity.

But perhaps the double context is intentional.
- For loads of clinically vulnerable people, the right to protest is dependent on the right to mask. You can only risk going to a crowded protest if you’re allowed to use protective measures to prevent infections.
Not random, masks make it harder for the facial recognition cameras.

They want violence.

I want violence.
- Be the change you want to see?

Ah there goes another thing that distinguished the USA from China and Russia.

At this point and with all these new and ilogical rules, Trump is basically Dolores Umbridge!

We need a giant to take him down!

Americans, you are living under a fascist regime.

We are very aware.

Let me see, USA becoming a dictatorship... BINGO!

This is something that only the Judiciary can declare (by failing to do anything), so I think it takes more than a few weeks.

But the Executive sure is working towards it.
- The judiciary only has power if the executive accepts that it has power.

“…illegal protest…”?

Oh right, the US Constitution doesn’t exist any more.

Hey Muricans, this is what you wanted and voted for (or could't be bother voting to prevent)... enjoy

or, hit the streets and remove the fascist gov you elected

I feel like the overlap of fediverse users and trump voters is close to 0
- Yeah but there are a bunch of "I'm going to not vote to 'send a message'! who cares if that makes the nazis win?" types
Honestly I'm just scared. I tried the civil way and voted and protested and went to marches and told everyone I knew. But now I'm just scared, it seems like the only option left is action of a violent nature and I don't know if I'm mentally prepared to throw my life away in prison or dead to try and stop the fascism. I know I have guns and if it tries to take me from my home I won't go down quietly, but I'm just scared to make the first move only to end up a martyr.

Camera-shy hoodie

We need something like this for daytime.

Also, read up on what they are ultimately going for: Eliminating the First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Trump supporters: "that's fine, the president isn't congress"

GG America. You better gear up for your own Maidan soon enough if you want to keep your rights.

The American people need to take the French route. “Off with their heads!”

The French would already have shutdown the airports, blockaded highways and lit a fire under Paris.

I'm masking and spray painting cameras. Cry about it, butterball.

Do not comply in advance.

We need to be taking to the streets now. He’s purging the military so when we finally do there won’t be any dissent when he orders them to flatten us.

Taken right out from a latin america's dictator playbook.

I am not American, I was in the border of anarchism before all this but now I am full anarchist.

Thanks Orange man.

He love the uneducated

Land of the free, eh?

FrEeDOm!

King Trump be like

Don't worry! Once the people who Defend the Constitution after SCORES OF 6 YEAR OLDS GET MOWED DOWN BY A GUNMAN hear about this they'll be PISSED and Take Action!

I dare you, you fat fuck. Do it. Arrest a citizen for exercising free speech. I want to see that second amendment used on you, you wannabe king.

“Have fun!”

Sure are a lot of suckers making policy over in the USA at the moment...

Finally, free speech! (/s, obv)

Fuck this is correct.

Cool, when's the protest hosted by college students? I'll go too.

Well that's easy. The protests aren't illegal. Therefore this amounts to nothing.

Fuck this dude.

In no way am I defending this behavior but wouldn't this only apply to public universities and colleges? The many that are technically private property can entirely ignore this correct?

How many universities will abandon free speech rights for 10% of their budget? Hard to say, many abandoned them for less when students were protesting genocide.

LOL

...i mean you gotta give the orange one credit for making a show every day.

science meme? ok, i'll bite. fuck this indeed, imagine being Jewish in the past year, and being harassed and bullied from the "from the river to the sea" folks on campus, made to feel unsafe and targeted, not because you're Israeli, but simply because you're Jewish, and when you complain, being met with feckless and indignant school administration saying "free speech bro". broken clock right twice a day, and all that. time to make American Jihadis, and the nihilist leftists that support them, think twice, about what it's going to cost them to continue to terrorize Jews. this all could have been self policed, limits placed internally at just how far and how intense the "protests" were allowed to become, but it was an orgy of Antisemitism, and now, at least this Jew, is glad the hammer is coming down, though I wish it were from someone else, i'm glad for it just the same

I mean, fuck antisemitism in any form, obviously...

...but I'm going to say "allow fascists to eliminate freedom of protest" has a spotty track record improving that particular issue.

This guy is in power in no small part due to whatever definition for not-fascist Americans you want to use not showing up because they feel compromise is beneath them. Maybe it's time to learn that lesson.

Well, no, the time to learn that lesson was November. I guess it's finding out time. For people too rightfully indignant about the genocide in Gaza to look past their own noses and to people in your situation alike, I'm afraid.
Mod reminder to keep it civil and no personal attacks when you reply to this. This person has had bad experiences, remember the human. Please report any personal attacks.

PS: Remember, if you want to convince people you need to meet them where they are. This person is your neighbor, not your enemy.
I'm sure it must be a stressful time for Jewish people. All hate crime is horrible. Many people, Jewish and non-Jewish, oppose the actions of Israel.

I do hope the protests, to stop US arms being sent to Israel, grow in strength. And I do what I can personally to help.

When looking at the numbers its no exaggeration to say that the Palestinian people are being slaughtered by the Israel military.

On October 7, 2023 Israel was attacked killing 1200 Israelis. Israel's response to the attack has been completely disproportionate and has now (as of June 2024) killed over 7,797 children. In the same time the conflict killed 53 children in Israel.

The most conservative estimate is that 7,797 Palestinian children have been killed, in the same time it is estimated that the total Israeli casualties; including military and civilian, including men, women, and children is 1200.

on April 24, 2024 with many thousands of Palestinian children already dead, the US gave 14 billion in aid to Israel

Neither US political party is stopping this.

Here are my sources, I am always interested to have other sources.

I tried to pick from a range of sources and tried to include any statistic that made my argument weakest. Most of the numbers come from June to August of 2024.

How many Palestinians have been killed? May 2024 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said 30,000 https://time.com/6979208/israel-gaza-death-toll/ The Gaza Ministry of Health said that 36,379 people had been killed by the end of May 2024, https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-gaza-deaths-women-children-360c6aabc03421c718d4a8452cec2c67 The associated press reported 40,005 in August 2024. https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-gaza-war-palestinians-statistics-40000-7ebec13101f6d08fe10cedbf5e172dde

How many of the Palestinian deaths were combatants? hamas officials say 6000 to 8000 https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israels-six-week-drive-hit-hamas-rafah-scale-back-war-2024-02-19/, https://time.com/6979208/israel-gaza-death-toll/ Netanyahu says 14,000 combatants https://time.com/6979208/israel-gaza-death-toll/

How many of the Palestinian deaths were civilians? Many articles state that most of the Palestinian death records don't include combatant/non-combatant designations. The most common statistic given in this context is deaths of women and children. of those killed 58 to 48% were women and children https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-794306 of 24,686 identified casualties: 7,797 children (32%), 4,959 women (20%), 1,924 elderly (8%) https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/reported-impact-snapshot-gaza-strip-3-july-2024-1500 Netanyahu said "probably around 16,000 civilians have been killed" https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/may/24/the-un-adjusted-its-gaza-fatality-reporting-heres/

How many Israelis have been killed? 1,200 in israel plus 320 israeli combatants in Gaza https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/reported-impact-snapshot-gaza-strip-3-july-2024-1500 1,200 in the oct 7 2023 attack https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-revises-death-toll-from-oct-7-hamas-assault-dropping-it-from-1400-to-1200/

How many of the Israeli deaths were combatants? 318 of the 1,200 killed in the oct 7 2023 attack were combatants: https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-revises-death-toll-from-oct-7-hamas-assault-dropping-it-from-1400-to-1200/

How many of the Israeli deaths were civilians? of the 1,162 identiﬁed fatalities, at least 33 were children https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/reported-impact-snapshot-gaza-strip-3-july-2024-1500 53 children killed in israel https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-gaza-war-palestinians-statistics-40000-7ebec13101f6d08fe10cedbf5e172dde
This position is interesting. It's echoed in articles like:

https://jewishjournal.com/culture/first_person/300258/when-the-chicken-votes-for-colonel-sanders/

Sometimes couched as anti-Israel, we find supporters of discrimination in their spheres of influence, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), spouting prejudices with hubris while their party’s leadership, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, remain mostly silent.

German Jews recognize they safely exist only through police protection, who park outside German synagogues to prevent anti-Semitic violence. In Poland, the home of Auschwitz, anti-Semitism has become so accepted it blatantly is part of the platform of the National Democratic Party, known as “Endeks.”

And they assert this bit of history as evidence:

From 1921 to 1935, there was a group named the Association of German National Jews (Verband national Deutsche Juden), whose goal was the total assimilation of Jews into German culture; the self-eradication of Jewish identity; the expulsion of all Eastern European Jews from Germany; and a radical hatred of Zionism. Sadly, these seem like the same goals of many Jews in America choosing to deny the faith and practices of their ancestors in favor of secularizing themselves. On some level — often unconscious — they believe if they deny their Judaism and go along with the anti-Semitic rhetoric, non-Jewish Americans will better accept them. Unfortunately, they are avoiding looking at history.

To me, it sounds like the argument is being framed as "us" Jews and "them" Jews making the mistake of trying to homogenize. That's tremendously ironic, as this type of thinking is exactly what led them to support Nazi Germany. The exact kind of language Trump use, aggressive, bombastic pursuit of "agitators" as undesirables, of ignoring antisemites and bigots Trump associates himself with, of dismissing his speech as a "rhetorical tool," is what German Jewish groups believed would protect them... Until Nazis came for them, too.

Maybe antisemetic violence should be curbed, but you should consider what's actually causing it, and how that "curbing" will be done.
- "The Jews are the cause of Antisemitism" yes, how novel, why didn't anyone else think of that, oh, that's right, literally every other band of Antisemites throughout all time have used that line of reasoning,"why can't the Jews, you know, be less Jewish, we are absolutely within our rights to terrorize them until they see the light". "Maybe antisemitic violence should be curbed" "Maybe". Quite.
Friendly reminder that Trump refused to condemn a group of white supremacists chanting "Jews will not replace us".

He is not on your side. And, if history is any indication, allowing government to control speech and expression by fascist means is much more dangerous to Jews than any group of student protesters could ever be.